Local News in Brief : Reseda High Teacher Is Awarded $25,000
The creator of a curriculum used at the Humanities Magnet Center at Cleveland High School in Reseda has won a $25,000 California Educator Award for excellence in public education.
Neil Anstead, coordinator of the Cleveland Humanities program, is one of 12 California teachers honored during the first year the award has been granted. Prize money, which the educators can use for any purpose, was donated by the Milken Family Foundation of Los Angeles.
“When I got the call informing me that I had won, I thought it was a prank,” an ebullient Anstead said Wednesday. “I was so embarrassed that I changed the subject and started talking about curriculum.”
Established in 1981, the Cleveland Humanities program is an interdisciplinary approach to education in which a common theme is explored in several subject areas. For example, the effect of the Industrial Revolution is studied in history, literature, art, music and philosophy.
The innovative program has been honored by the Rockefeller Foundation, and its curriculum has been adapted for 13 other high schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
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